


flying homeward down your highway

by gdgdbaby



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: During Canon, F/F, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 19:42:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18037643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gdgdbaby/pseuds/gdgdbaby
Summary: It was bad enough to be a black woman in the Air Force, they used to joke. Being gay made her a triple threat.





	flying homeward down your highway

**Author's Note:**

> title from [there and back again](http://lucy-vanpelt.tumblr.com/post/111972276163) by n.m.h.

She returns in the spring, six years later, ducking around the old plane in the shed out back. Maria hasn't seen ghosts in a long time, not since she was a little girl listening to stories in her grandma's kitchen, but for a split second, when Monica runs up and gives the woman who looks like Carol a big hug, Maria thinks it might be the second sight. The type of wishful thinking that always blows in along the southerly wind, carrying spirits with it.

The moment passes, but the ache in Maria's chest doesn't.

 

 

She introduces herself as Vers. She doesn't remember anything.

Or, well: "Just flashes," she says, standing stiffly next to the dining table. Monica's watching her every move, drinking her in like she might disappear into thin air if she takes her eyes off her.

Maria understands the impulse, but mostly she feels frozen, the windowsill digging into her back. She already mourned once. She doesn't want to have to do it again, but it seems inevitable, looking at the vacant expression on Vers's face. Even after Monica digs out all the relics of the life she once lived, there's no flicker of recognition, no aha! moment. What do you say to someone you used to know like the back of your own hand?

 

 

When Talos shows up, it's almost a relief. There's something more immediate to worry about — aliens, the potential invasion of the world, the imminent safety of her child — than the tension in the room.

The part where Vers remembers the crash that should've killed her makes Maria's heart leap despite herself, and then they're standing out in a field at dusk again, like the night before their last, disastrous mission, Carol gazing at the sky and fighting back tears. Back where it started, back where it ended. In all of Maria's best memories of her, Carol was always looking up.

 

 

"Here," Maria says later, once the aliens have left to futz around with upgrading the military plane. "You should get some rest, if you can. Big mission in the morning."

Monica's passed out in her room already, exhausted from the adrenaline crash; Fury's bunking with Goose on the couch. Carol asked, when they came back inside, if there was a shower available to wash off some of the grime of the last sixteen hours, and Maria had sent her into the bathroom with a couple of big, fluffy towels.

She's kept a bundle of Carol's old clothing stuck in the back of her closet all these years. They didn't have a lot back in the day — they were soldiers, they had to travel light — so it wasn't much, but Maria hadn't had the heart to donate any of it. Sentimentality, or something.

Carol sinks down on the edge of Maria's bed, hair dripping wet. She stares down at the soft shirt and flannel pajama pants in her lap, and then looks at Maria again, eyes clear. "Thank you."

"It's nothing," Maria says, stepping back, swallowing around the lump in her throat. "Just returning what's yours."

"Not only for this," Carol says, biting her lip. She shifts against the sheets, picking at the hem of the towel wrapped around her. "What you said out there… did you mean it?"

"I don't know how much you remember now," Maria says slowly, watching Carol touch her fingertips to her temple and grimace. "But in the brief time we've been reunited, have I said anything I didn't mean?"

Carol's face crinkles into a real smile. "Point," she says, dry, the same way she would whenever Maria brought up the casual lunacy of whatever wild new plan she'd cooked up this time, right before she went ahead and did it anyway.

Maria glances at the blinking red digital clock on the bedside table, listens to the sounds of hammering from outside. "So. If you go to sleep now, you could maybe catch an hour or two of shuteye." She turns toward the door. "I'll let you get—"

"Maria," Carol says carefully, "were we," and doesn't finish the question.

Maria exhales, long and slow. "No," she says, steadier than she feels. "We weren't." It was bad enough to be a black woman in the Air Force, they used to joke. Being gay made her a triple threat.

"Oh," Carol says. "Okay." The next pause stretches out between them like taffy. "I think maybe I wanted us to be."

"Carol," Maria says, can't help the way her voice breaks, and then Carol's standing up, moving toward her, the floral smell of Maria's shampoo bridging the final distance between them.

"Yeah," she says, the corner of her mouth lifting. "That's my name."

 

 

Maria's spent years thinking about what could have been, regrets hung up in a neat row, undisturbed, all the little things she would've said and done differently if she knew how the future was going to unfold. You don't get second chances like this very often.

It's been a while since she's kissed anyone aside from Monica, but there's no time to be self-conscious when there's so much else to focus on: the tangle of her hands in Carol's hair, the shock of warmth when Carol's mouth skates over Maria's collarbone, down the curve of her breast, the way their bodies fit together when they make it back to the bed.

"I'm very out of practice," Maria pants as Carol pushes her legs apart.

Carol just grins at her, eyes dancing. "I'm not sure I even remember how it's supposed to go, but I have faith we'll figure it out," she says before ducking in, fingers curled around Maria's hips. Maria pulls a pillow over her face to try and avoid making too much noise, but she comes back up for air flushed and gasping in the middle of it, Carol's mouth hot and wet and humming against her.

When Maria glances down, Carol's peering up at her, gaze wide and intent. "What?" Maria asks, reaching out to tuck Carol's bangs back behind her ear.

Carol pulls back long enough to say, "Don't want to forget how you look like this," almost too soft to catch. For a moment, they just look at each other, breathing hard in tandem — and then Carol leans in again, chin sticky and tongue firm, and stays there until every other thought in Maria's head has left her.

 

 

"You don't have to come with us if you really don't want to," Carol says in the morning. "It's a dangerous mission." They're dressed again, in the living room, Goose milling about underfoot. Fury's made coffee. The first rays of sunlight are just starting to crest over the rolling hills, and they make her glow through the window, backlit, the golden mane of her hair rippling across her shoulders.

"Don't be stupid," Maria and Monica say in unison, and Carol laughs.

"I'm serious!" she says, arms akimbo. For a moment, it does feel like old times, the three of them cackling around the dining room table, bickering over where to order takeout from or what movie to put on.

They're a long way from there, but they can find something new. Something better.

"Like hell I'm letting you go alone this time," Maria says, and follows her out into the dawn.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [flying homeward down your highway [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19335952) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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